Mongolia | Chingis Khan Portraits

Paris-based scholar Isabelle Charleux, author of Temples et monastères de Mongolie-intérieure, has posted a Collection of Chingis Khan Portraits. Check them out. See more on Chingis Portraits.

One of some 200 portraits of Chingis Khan from the Collection

Mongolia | Töv Aimag | Natty Chingis Rides Again!

Since March 8 was International Woman’s Day and Chingis Khan was a great admirer of women I popped out to the new Chingis Statue, in the Tuul River Valley about 30 miles west of Ulaan Baatar, not far from the Tonyukuk Türk Monuments. I had seen the statue numerous times when it was under construction but this is first time I actually drove over to the site. You can go inside and climb up into the statue itself but the 10,000 tögrög fee ($6.37) seemed a bit exhorbitant, so I passed on that.

Mongolia | Life and Death of the False Lama #6

Earlier I wrote about the Exodus of the Kalmyks and how Dambijantsan’s tribe, the Dörböts, had been left behind in Kalmykia . . .

At the time Dambijantsan was born, at the beginning of the 1860s, Tibetan Buddhism, despite the continued pressure to convert the Kalmyks to Russian Orthodoxy, was still prevalent in Kalmykia, the land of the Kalmyks. In all likelihood Dambijantsan was born into a family which adhered to Buddhism to one degree or another. The first news we hear of him is that at the age of seven he was supposedly enrolled as a novice in a Buddhist monastery in Dolonnuur, in what is now the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. Maisky heard this story while in western Mongolia in 1919, when Dambijantsan was still alive. Dolonnuur was firmly in the orbit of the Eastern Mongols, the Chahar of Inner Mongolia and Khalkh of what was then considered Outer Mongolia, and at first glance it appears strange that a young Dörböt from the Volga River in Russia would have gravitated there. Kalmyks wishing to enter a monastery outside of Kalmykia, we would think, would have been more drawn to western China, including the modern-day provinces of Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Gansu, the traditional strongholds of the Torguts, Dörbots, and other Oirats, both those who not migrated westward in the early seventeenth century and those who had returned in the great exodus of 1771. Fred Adelman, in his introduction to Pozdneev’s Mongolia and Mongols makes precisely this objection, and John Gaunt in his doctoral thesis on Dambijantsan repeats it: “it would be unlikely to find a Volga Kalmuk at Doloon Nuur, as they were not oriented toward Inner Mongolia’s monastic net.”

The French scholar Isabelle Charleux, an expert on Inner Mongolian monasteries, offers a different interpretation: “There were many monks and students [at Dolonnuur] from all of the Mongol world, given the reputation of the Dolonnuur monasteries and their high reincarnated masters that attracted people from very far away . . . The Dolonnuur monasteries were not only connected with the Khalkh Mongols; but also with the Inner Mongolians of Alashan and Kholun Buir . . . Also the migrant population of the Chahar banners included many Oirat Mongols. If Dambijantsan’s parents were especially fond of the Dolonnuur monasteries—because they knew a lama there, because of the reputation of the monasteries, etc.—they would have sent their child there.”

A Russian researcher adds that Dambijantsan’s parents moved to Inner Mongolia “for all the usual reasons”—presumably they were traders—when he was a very small boy, which would explain how the seven-year old boy also ended up there. Therefore it is entirely possible that this entry into Dambijantsan’s curriculum vitae was not simply a later invention meant to burnish this reputation among the Khaklh Mongols but that he actually was enrolled as a monk at Dolonnuur at an early age. In any case, this is the last we hear of his parents.

Dolonnuur (doloon = seven, nuur = lake; Seven Lakes) is located in the grasslands (now suffering from increasing desertification) 210 miles north of Beijing, about fifty-two miles beyond the first major pass leading to the Mongolian Plateau.

Ovoo at the first pass on the Mongolian Plateau

Statue of Khubilai Khan at the first pass on the Mongolian Plateau

The area is much hallowed in Mongolian history. Fourteen miles from the current town of Dolonnuur is the site of Shangdu, originally established in 1256 as the headquarters of Chingis Khan’s grandson Khubilai. After Khubilai founded the Yüan Dynasty he made what is now Bejing the primary capital of his empire, but he retained Shangdu as his summer capital, where he and his court retired each year to escape the enervating heat of the North China Plain. Shangdu was destroyed in the so-called “Red Scarf Rebellion” of 1358, a precursor to the upheavals which led to the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 and the rise of the Ming Dynasty. Later the city became known to some as the Xiancheng, or Apparition City, since people claimed that at certain times the old city as it was in the days of Khubilai appeared suddenly before their eyes and then disappeared just as quickly, leaving only the ruins as we see them today. Shangdu is also remembered as the subject of Coleridge’s much celebrated poem "Xanadu”:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea . . .

Ruins of Khubilai’s Palace at Shangdu

The ruins are now a popular tourist attraction and the area still serves as a summer getaway, only now not for Mongol potentates but for Beijing’s middle classes. More important to our story, however, it was at nearby Dolonnuur that in 1691 a fateful meeting took place between the Kangxi emperor of China and Zanabazar, the First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia and the nominal head of the Khalkh Mongols.

Tourist Camp near Shangdu

When we last left Khara Khula he was organizing the four tribes of the Oirat into the Oirat Confederation. He died in 1634 and his son Baatar-Hongtaiji assumed the throne. In 1635 the Dalai Lama officially recognized Baatar-Hongtaiji as the leader of the Oirats and gave him the title of Yerdyen. By 1640 Baatar-Hongtaiji’s realm become known as the Zungarian Khanate. The name derives from the Mongol zuun gar, “left hand“, or “eastern side;”; although the Oirats dwelt in the western end of the lands inhabited by Mongol peoples, the Choros tribe to which Khara Khula and Baatar-Hongtaiji belonged was the easternmost of the Oirat confederation and thus on the “left hand“ looking southward, as the Mongols always oriented themselves.

Following a long internecine struggle between Baatar-Hongtaiji’s offspring, replete with fratricide and rivers of blood, Galdan, probably the youngest of his eleven or so sons, seized the reins of the Zungarian Khanate. Under Galdan the Zungarian Khanate eventually encompassed a huge swath of Inner Asia, including the western edge of current-day Mongolia, the current-day Chinese province of Xinjiang, including the Silk Road cities of Hami, Turpan, and Kashgar, the legendary cities of Bukhara of Samarkand in what is now Uzbekistan, and the eastern part of current-day Kazakhstan. Although little remembered today, during Galdan’s reign the Zungarian Khanate was a formidable adversary of both Czarist Russia and Qing-Dynasty China.

Galdan would become one of the role models of Dambijantsan, and we will return for a more detailed examination of his career in good time. Suffice it to say here that in 1688 Galdan, hoping to add the territory of the Khalkh Mongols to the Zungarian Empire, invaded what is now the country of Mongolia. Meeting little opposition from the disorganized Khalkh, his army first trashed the great monastery of Erdene Zuu, built on site of the old Mongol capital of Kharkhorum, and the Monastery at Khögno Khan Uul (now known as Khögnö Taryn Khiid), just to the east. Advancing farther eastward, Galdan’s men then demolished Saridgiin Khiid, located in the Khentii Mountains north of Ulaan Baatar, the monastery which had been established by Zanabazar himself and intended to be the center of Buddhism in Mongolia. Zanabazar, his brother Chakhuundorj the Tüsheet khan, the leaders of the other Khalkh khanates, and, according to one source, at least 30,000 of their followers fled southeastward before the advance of Galdan’s troops, eventually reaching the edge of the Mongolian Plateau near Dolonnuur, land of the Chahar Mongols, who had already accepted the authority of the Qing Dynasty. Here the Khalkh Mongols, by now almost destitute, threw themselves at mercy of the Qing emperor Kangxi.

Dolonnuur was at that time already an important monastic center, with no less then twelve incarnate lamas in residence. The town, strategically located at the edge of the Mongolian plateau, was also a busy Chinese-Mongolian entrepôt. Because of deposits of copper ore nearby it became a center of mining and smelting, and its factories were well-known for their weapons, and later its workshops became better known for the bronze Buddhist Artwork of the Dolonnuur School.

Dolonnuur School White Tara in the Bogd Khan Winter Palace Museum

The Kangxi emperor, apprized of the arrival of the Khalkh Mongols in his domains, decided to meet with their leaders and if possible bring them into the fold of the Qing Dynasty. He left Beijing on May 9, 1691 and made his leisurely way north, stopping to do a spot of hunting on the way. From May 29 to June 3 Kangxi finally meet with Zanabazar and the other Khalkh leaders in Dolonnuur. A great banquet was followed by a display of Qing might in the form of cannons, newly acquired from Jesuits in Bejing, the firing of which caused the Mongols “to tremble with fear and admiration,” at least according to Qing sources. The upshot of all this was that in exchange for protection from the forces of Galdan Bolshigt and a promise from Kangxi to restore to the Khalkh their lost lands in Mongolia, Zanabazar accepted the suzerainty of the Qing Dynasty, in effect making Mongolia a province of China. The country which Chingis Khan and his sons had conquered and his grandson Khubilai had once ruled as the first emperor of the Mongol Yüan Dynasty now dominated Mongolia. Mongolia would remain under Chinese control until 1911, when the Qing Dynasty fell. Those 220 years of subjugation by the Qing Empire are seen by some as a direct consequence of Zanabazar’s capitulation to Kangxi, and as a result many Mongolians resent him to this day. Dambijantsan himself would devote the greater part of his life to undoing what Zanabazar had done and restoring the independence of Mongolia.

But that was all in the future. In 1691, In honor of his meeting with Zanabazar and the capitulation of the Mongols, Kangxi ordered the construction of what would become the Khökh Süm, or Blue Temple. (One prominent Mongolian incarnation, the Kanjurwa Khutagt [1914–1980], maintains that on the contrary Mongol nobles built the temple in honor of Kangxi, a telling interpretation of events from a Mongol viewpoint)

Front of the Khökh Süm, which is currently being restored

The Khökh Süm was completed around 1700 and it eventually began the center of a sizable monastery. About a half mile away, the Shar Süm, or Yellow Temple, was built between 1729 and 1731 and it too became the foundation of a monastery.

Ruins of the Shar Süm

Ruins of the Shar Süm

Both monasteries were overseen by a line of incarnate lamas known as the Jangjya Khutagts. Sedendonub, the first Jangjya Khutagt, was instructed by Kangxi himself to “spend the chilly wintertime in Peking and in the summertime heat govern here and the direct the local clergy.” The Jangjya Khutagts maintained residences at both the Blue Temple and and the Yellow Temple.

The Jangjya Khutagt’s residence at the Khökh Süm

Side buildings at the Jangjya Khutagt’s residence at the Khökh Süm

The second Jangjya Khutagt, Rölpé Dorjé, was described by one scholar as “an intimate of the Qianlong emperor and thus perhaps the most powerful Tibetan hierarch in the Qing Empire.” Dolonnuur’s importance as a monastic center was underlined by the fact that the Third Panchen Lama visited here during his trip to China in 1780. The Panchen Lamas along with the Dalai Lamas were the highest ranking incarnate lamas in Tibet. The Panchen Lama arrived in Dolonnuur on the 20th day of the 6th month, and according to hagiographic Tibetan accounts was greeted by one million people, although this is almost certainly an exaggeration. In any case, while in Dolonnuur the Panchen Lama reportedly “performed a purification ritual that pacified the restless demons of Mongolia.” He also gave a Yamantaka initiation to the Jangjya Khutagt and read prayers dedicated to the sacred land of Shambhala, a realm about which he had already written a guidebook entitled Shambhala Lamyig.

From Dolonnuur the Panchen Lama proceeded to the Qing Summer Resort at Jehol where he was amazed to discover not only a Huge Replica of the Potala in Lhasa, already alluded to, but also a replica of his own Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. This complex of temples and facades, known as the Xumifoushou Miao (Happiness and Longevity Temple of Mt. Sumeru) was hurriedly constructed in 1779 and early 1780 by order of the Qianlong emperor. In front of it he had placed yet another stele declaring that the complex had been built to provide the Panchen Lama with “a restful place for meditation.” The Xumifoushou Miao too is now a major tourist attraction. Unfortunately, the Panchen Lama never returned to Tibet from this trip. From Jehol he proceeded Beijing to where he contracted small pox and died in late November of 1780.

The Russian ethnographer A. M. Podzneev visited Dolonuur in 1893. By then the monastic center seems to have lost some of its luster. The Yellow Temple had some 400 monks and the Khökh Temple some 500, not a lot compared to monasteries in Lhasa in Tibet and Örgöö (now Ulaan Baatar] in Mongolia. The fourth Jangjya Khutagt, who died in 1891, spent most of his life in Beijing and had not visited Dolonnuur in fifty years. Pozdneev was by that time a very seasoned traveler in Mongolia and China but even he was shocked by conditions in Dolonnuur: “It would be hard to imagine anything dirtier and in greater disarray than Doloon Nuur’s street and alleys. The street in all Chinese cities are normally narrow and dirty, but here they are even narrower and dirtier . . . In the rainy season these ditches used as thoroughfares are so full of water and mud that some of the streets become iiterally impassable.”

Presumably this is more-or-less the same Dolonnuur Dambijantsan would have experienced in the late 1860s when he arrived there at the age of seven and became a novice monk.

The streets of Dolonnuur are in better shape today

Mongolia | Life & Death of the False Lama #4

How the people who became known as Kalmyks, originally nomads from Inner Asia, ended up in Europe as citizens of the Russian Empire, on the steppes straddling the Volga River north of the Caspian Sea, is a fascinating tale in itself. The saga of the Kalmyks is part of the larger story of the conflict between the Eastern Mongols of Chingis Khan and his Chingisid descendants and the Western, or Oirat, Mongols. The roots of this story go back to the thirteen century when a basic division took place between the Chingisid Mongols and the Mongols who became known as Oirats.

The Oirats were originally a forest people who dwelt in the taiga and mixed steppe-woodlands west of Lake Baikal, around Lake Khövsgöl to the south, and the basins of the upper tributaries of the Yenisei River still farther west. Their name might be based on the Mongolian word oi, which means “forest.” We first hear of the Oirats in the Yüan Chi, or History of the Yüan Dynasty, where they are called Wei-la or Wa-i-la. Other thirteenth century documents refer them as the Oira or Wan Oira. The Persian historian Rashid-al-Din (1247–1318) referred to the Oirats by name and said they lived in the basins of the eight rivers which combine to form the Yenisei River. These would include the Biy-Khem and Ka Kem in what is now the autonomous republic of Tuva, the Shishigt Gol and its Tributaries west of Lake Khövsgöl in Mongolia, and others. The Yüan Chi and Rashid-al-Din (please don't confuse him with Rashid al-Din Sinan, the notorious thirteenth-century head honcho of the Assassin Cult in Syria) both report further that in 1204 the Oirat joined with the Naiman, a tribe which lived in the northwest of current-day Mongolia, and fought against Chingis Khan. This venture failed and in 1208 they submitted to Chingis, under whose his banner they then served as auxiliaries in the great military campaigns of the Chingisid Mongols. Later, in 1260–64, they sided with the rebellion of Arika Buga against Chingis’s grandson and founder of the Yüan Dynasty Khubilai. After the defeat of Arika Buga they remained more or less subordinate to the Chingisids until after the fall of the Yüan Dynasty founded by Khubilai Khan and the expulsion of the Mongols from China in 1368.

The Chingisids, shorn of their Chinese empire, regrouped around their old capital of Kharkhorum on the Orkhon River. In 1372 and again in 1388, huge armies mustered by the Ming, who had replaced the Mongols as rulers of the Celestial Empire, crossed the Gobi Desert into Mongolia, hoping to stamp out any chance of a Chingisid revival. The 1388 invasion, consisting of over 100,000 Chinese troops, crushed the Mongols in a decisive battle south Lake Buir in current-day Dornod Aimag, after which the reigning khan, Töqüz Temür, was assassinated by a disgruntled relative. In 1399 an Oirat commander killed one of the successors to Töqüz Temür, an event which signaled the decline of the Chingisid Mongols and the ascension of the Oirats.

Yet for the Mongols as a whole the rise of the Oirats posed a problem. According to the unwritten laws of the steppe only a Chingisid, a descendant of Chingis Khan, could be anointed as Great Khan. This stricture was so inviolate that even the great Tamurlane, whose military exploits rivaled those of Chingis himself, never dared to take the title of Great Khan for himself but instead tried to legitimize his rule in the eyes of his followers by marrying the Chingisid princess Saray Mulk-khanum, the daughter of Khazan, the last ruler of the Chagatai Khanate founded by Chagatai, Chingis’s second son. Thus the Eastern Chingisid Mongols considered themselves to be the only legitimate rulers of the Mongolian people and viewed the Oirats as upstarts and usurpers who must forever remain their subordinates. Yet the Oirats would soon throw up great leaders who created empires which rivaled and surpassed the power of the Eastern Mongols. They would attack China itself and even dreamed of restoring the Yüan Dynasty which the Eastern Mongols had allowed to crumble away in their hands.

By 1434 the Oirat chieftain Toghan, after half a century of internecine Mongol warfare, had melded the four main tribes—the Torgut, Dörböt, Khoshot, and Choros, also known as the Four Confederate—into the first Oirat Empire. At its height in the mid-fifteenth century the Oirat realm stretched from Lake Baikal west to Lake Balkash in what is now Kazakhstan, and from Baikal south to the Great Wall of China. It included of much of current-day Mongolia, including the former capital of Kharkhorum, and in the west ruled over the Zungarian Basin, the slopes of the Tian Shan, and the oasis city of Hami in what is now Xinjiang. In the early 1440s Toghan’s son Esen assumed control of the Oirat Empire.

Although the ruler of a huge swatch of Inner Asia, as an Oirat he could not claim to be the Great Khan of all the Mongols. In an effort to legitimize his rule Esen married off his daughter to Toghto-Bukha, a descendant of Chingis Khan, who then assumed the more-or-less ceremonial title of khan, while Esen ruled as hegemon. Soon he would challenge the Ming dynasty itself.

The immediate source of conflict was over trade relations. The Oirats wanted free and open trade with China, while the Ming tended to consider commercial relations with the so-called barbarians of the steppe as beneath them. (One Ming emperor’s distain for the nomads to the north went so far as to issue an order that the Chinese characters for “barbarian” be written as small as possible in all official records. ) Also, according to one source, Esen was promised a Ming princess as a wife by the Ming emperor Yingzong. When the bride was not produced Esen used this as a pretext to invade China.

The twenty-one year-old emperor Yingzong thirsted for military glory, and under the baleful influence of a court eunuch named Wang Zhen he unwisely decided to himself lead an army into battle and confront the Mongols before they could reach Beijing. On August 4 1449 the Ming army with Yingzong at its head left the capital and headed north. After sixteen days it became apparent that the badly organized and ill-equipped force was incapable of confronting the Oirats under Esen. A retreat was ordered, but on September 1 Esen cornered the Ming army at a place called Tumu, sixty some miles northwest of Beijing and twenty-five miles or so beyond the Great Wall in what is now Hubei Province. Most if not all of the army of 50,000 Chinese was annihilated, and most humiliatingly of all emperor Yingzong was taken prisoner. His advisor the eunuch Wang Zhen was cut down on the field of battle, according to one version of the story dispatched by disgruntled Chinese soldiers who realized too late they had been led like sheep to the slaughter.

A month or two later Esen was camped in the suburbs of Beijing. Although a master of steppe warfare he was unable to master the siege tactics necessary to overpower the walled and fortified capital. His royal hostage was of no help either. Yingzong’s younger brother Prince Cheng had assumed the vacant throne and taken the title of Jingtai Emperor. Esen had hoped to gain great concessions in return for the person of Yingzong but now the Ming court was in no hurry at all to get him back. After Ming reinforcements from other cities began converging on Beijing and the Mongol horses had eaten most of the available grass around the capital Esen decided to return to the more hospitable steppes of Mongolia. After a year Esen finally released Yingzong, but upon the latter’s return to Beijing he was placed under virtual house arrest in an out-of-the-way palace in the southeast corner of the Forbidden City and ignored, while his younger brother continued to rule. Yingzong did eventually retake his throne, but the details of these events are outside the scope of our narrative.

For a brief moment while the Oirats were camped outside Beijing it had appeared that Esen was about to retake the throne of China lost by the Chingisids in 1368 and install a new version of the Yüan Dynasty. Esen’s success was short-lived however. He had not been able to take Beijing, had not received the anticipated massive ransom for Yingzong, and in fact had very little to show in the way of plunder for his great victory on the battlefield at Tumu. Yet he had become so emboldened by his military feat that in 1453 he had his Chingisid son-in-law assassinated and he himself assumed the title of Great Khan of all the Mongols. As an Oirat he had no right to make such a claim; some considered him an usurper and in 1455 he himself was assassinated by disgruntled Mongols. The Oirat Empire depended on large part on the person of Esen, and with him gone it rapidly began to disintegrate.

The Eastern Mongols, who as descendants of Chingis Khan claimed to be the only legitimate rulers of Mongolia, were still in the throes of a long period of internal strife. Mandagul Khan, the twenty-seventh successor of Chingis Khan, was killed in a struggle with his great-nephew Bolkho, and after Bolkho himself was assassinated his five year-old son Dayan was place on the throne. Khan Mandagul’s widow Mandukhai took the little boy under her wing and acting as his de-facto regent assumed command herself of the Mongol armies. Later she took the extraordinary step of marrying Dayan, the son of the great-nephew of her deceased husband, thus making herself khatun, or queen of the Eastern Mongols. Under the leadership of Khatun Manduukhai —now a Much Revered and Venerated Figure in Mongolian history—the Eastern Mongols were able to subdue the then disorganized Oirats and by the 1490s reassert the supremacy of the Chingisids. ”It is to her that tradition gives credit for having overthrown Oirat supremacy and restored the hegemony to the eastern Mongols,” proclaims historian of the steppes René Grousset.

Dayan Khan’s grandson Altan Khan (r. 1543–83), who ruled the Tümed Mongols on the steppe north of the Ordos Desert, in what is now Inner Mongolia, continued the struggle against the Oirats, pushing them northward and westward of his domains. Meanwhile Dayan Khan’s son Geresenje had taken as his inheritance much of what is now the country of Mongolia. When he died these lands, inhabited by Khalkh Mongols, were parceled out to his descendants and eventually became Tüsheet, Zasagt, Setsen. and the Altan khanates.

By the 1550s the combined forces of the Eastern Mongols had driven the Oirats out of central Mongolia, recapturing the ancient Mongol capital of Kharkhorum in 1552. The Oirat retreated to the west of the Khangai Mountains, but continued pressure by Altan Khan of the Khalkh (please don’t confuse him with Altan Khan of the Tümed) at the beginning of the seventeenth century pushed them still farther west, beyond the Altai Mountains into the valleys of the Black Irtysh, Ili, and the Imil, in what is now Xinjiang in China, and onto the steppes of southern Siberia in what is now Russia.

But now, as if to counteract their diminishing influence, a charismatic new leader arose among the Oirat. This was Khara-Khula, who dreamed of recreating the Oirat Empire which had flourished under Esen in the fifteen century and even retaking the throne of China which had been so improvidently squandered by the Chingisid Mongols. Khara-Khula belonged to the Choros, one of the four tribes which had up the Oirat Confederation. He began his rise to power around 1600 and by In 1606, faced with rising power of the Khalkh Altan Khan to the east, the other three confederates—the Torgut, Dörböt, and Khoshot, accepted his leadership.

By 1608–1609 he and the Oirats confronted Altan Khan and halted the westward advance of the Khalkh. Skirmishes continued for the next decade, until in 1619 all-out war broke out between Khara-Khula and Altan Khan. At first Altan Khan prevailed, but the Oirats fought back and by 1725 had driven the Eastern Mongols out of the Zungarian Basin in what is now Xinjiang. This would remain a Oirat stronghold until they were completely defeated by forces of the Qing Dynasty in the 1750s.

While the other three confederates had accepted Khara-Khula’s leadership against Altan Khan they were not completely happy with the subordinate position they had assumed in the Oirat Confederation. Faced with both the rise of Khara-Khula, who threatened their independence, and the continuing incursions into their traditional grazing lands by the Eastern Mongols, some chose to leave Inner Asia altogether. Thus began the great migration westward of the people who would become known as Kalmyks. It was among these Kalmyks that Dambijantsan would emerge.

Mongolia | Khentii Aimag | Khökh Nuur to Baldan Bereeven Khiid

Sometime during the night the incessant winds that had been dogging us since our arrival in Khökh Nuur died down and the sky cleared off completely. By four o'clock in the morning Orion was dominating the sky overhead. Daybreak saw a faultless dome of azure overhead and by the time we had finished breakfast temperatures were up in the 60s F. This was the kind of balmy end-of-summer weather I had been anticipating when I planned this trip. In high spirits we scarpered eastward toward our next destination, Baldan Bereeven Khiid.

This is Chingis Khan Country. From our starting point on the Terelj River, near where Temüjin, the young Chingis Khan, was living when the Merkits kidnapped his wife Börte, to the current day town of Binder, near where Temujin was born (according to one school of thought), farther on out to the east, stretches the territory where many of the events in the early life of the future World Conqueror took place. At a place called Tavan Tolgoi we stop to inspect some slabs of rock which local lore maintains were used by Chingis as pot supports at his fireplace when his ger was located here.

Purported pot supports at a “Chingis Slept Here” site

The stone slabs look surprising like the tomb coverings at the Monument to Kontuyuk, the advisor to the eighth century Khökh Turk Chieftain Kultegin. If they were Turk tomb coverings that of course does not mean Chingis could not have used them later as pot supports. Still later we pass by a place where Temüjin and his bosum buddy and later Arch-Nemesis Jamukha had their final falling out.

By lunch time we had arrived at Övör Elegiin Gol where Zevgee assured us there would be water. Much to Zevgee’s chagrin, however, the river was dry where the trail crossed it. We followed the riverbed downstream perhaps a thousand yards and soon came to a pool of water where the underground stream emerged. The water was fresh, clear, and icy cold. By the pool was a grassy glade surrounded by cottonwood trees and nearby dead brush offered plentiful firewood. The three essentials for a successful lunch—us, tülsh, and süüder (water, firewood, and shade)—thus provided for we unloaded our pack horses and threw out carpets on the grass beneath the largest cottonwood tree. We lounged on our carpets as Zevgee’s son-in-law Badmaa and grandson Bondogo fetched water and built a fire and in no time at all we were sipping delightfully fragrant Oolong tea (Shan Ling Xi from Taiwan, highly recommended). Tumen-Ölzii rolled out dough for fresh noodles and soon we were tucking into bowls of Guriltai Shöl—mutton soup with noodles. I hardly wanted to leave this idyllic spot, but finally we had a last bowl of tea and then packed up our horses and moved on.

By early evening we had reached Baruun Bayan Gol. Here, according to legend, was born Boorch, one of Chingis Khan’s boon companions. (See Paragraphs 90–93, 95, 99, 103, 120, 124–25, 156, 163, 172, 177, 202, 205, 209, 210, 220, 240, 242, 259–60, and 266 of the Secret History of the Mongols [also Kindle Version] for more on Boorch.) Camped on the sward by the river, with plentiful firewood nearby. Yunnan Gold tea followed by boiled sheep ribs and potato and cabbage soup heavily larded with stick-to-the-ribs mutton fat.

Yunnan Gold—the Perfect Complement to boiled sheep ribs and mutton fat

Just after dark breathtakingly luminous Jupiter appeared in the southern sky, just above the Sagittarius Teapot and just below the dimmer Sagittarius Teaspoon. The clear, cloudless sky soon revealed a full panoply of stars overhead: the constellations of Cygnus, Cepheus, and my personal favorite Cassiopeia to the northeast; the ever-glorious Scorpius off to the south; and of course the Seven Gods (Big Dipper) to the west. And then in the early hours toward morning magnificent Orion appeared. All and all a mindbogglingly gorgeous night. The next morning we moved out quickly, hoping to reach Baldan Bereeven Khiid by lunch time.

On the Road to Baldan Bereeven Khiid

We soon passed Khangalyn Nuur, where there is a monument to “Nature.” A sign on the monument implores people to protect the environment.

Monument at Khangalyn Nuur

Then we moved into the wooded foothills and began the climb to 4,698-foot Khangalyn Davaa.

Khangalyn Davaa

View eastward from Khangalyn Davaa. Baldan Bereeven Khiid is at the base of the mountain on the right edge of the photo.

We arrived at Baldan Bereeven just after noon. We were of course anxious to visit the monastery but first we set up camp, built a fire, and had a pot of Tie Kwan Yin Oolong tea. Tie Kwan Yin, the Iron Goddess of Mercy, is, as you probably know, the Chinese version of Avalokitesvara (Tibetan: Chenresig; Mongolian: Janraisag), the Bodhisatta of Companion, and thus a fitting drink in the environs of a monastery. In honor of our arrival Tumen-Ölzii also whipped up a big batch of Tsuivan, a much hallowed mutton and noodle dish which holds a special place of honor in the firmament of Mongolian cuisine.

Zevgee oversees the teapot at our Baldan Beereveen campsite

Mongolia | Khentii Aimag | Khökh Nuur

After fording the Kherlen Gol near the Old Man’s Bushes we rode for another three hours through open steppe without a sign of water or firewood. Zevgee said we would soon reach a small tributary of the Kherlen where we would camp for the night. But when we got there the tributary was dry. Zevgee said this was the first time he had ever seen this. The nearest water was the Kherlen Gol, at least an hour's ride off to the west. While we took a break to decide what to do a local herdsman came by. He said there was a well at his ger about a mile away and that he would loan us a water container for the night. So we dispatched Zevgee's grandson for some water and set up our tents. There was a winter camp nearby and Zevgee was able to salvage some old logs there for firewood. Soon we enjoying a pot of Yunnan Gold Tea and later a big pot of sheep ribs and soup.

The next morning we followed the tributary east into the mountains, passing several large meadows where herdsmen were cutting wild hay for the winter with scythes. Larch forest creep down lower and lower on the flanks of the mountains until we were riding through park-like woods. Crossing a low pass we emerged on an upland of steppe interspersed by forested hills and ridges. Hidden among these hills was Khökh Nuur, the Blue Lake of the Black Heart Mountain where Temüjin, the future Chingis Khan, had lived with his family when he was a youngster. The family had fallen on hard times and when they lived here the only livestock they owned was nine horses. They surviving on marmots and other wild game. (see Paragraph 89 of The Secret History of the Mongols). Later, in 1189, when Temujin’s fortunes had taken a complete turnabout, he was declared Khan of all the Mongols here (see Paragraph 123 of the Secret History). It may be at this time that he received the title of Chingis Khan, although some sources maintain that he did not get the title of Chingis until later, in 1206. In any case Khökh Nuur is a hallowed site in the early life of Chingis.

Soon we spotted in the distance a large lodge surrounded by half a dozen or more small guest houses. I was a bit surprise to see this resort out here, but even more surprised when we rode a bit farther and saw that the resort was on the shores of Khökh Nuur. We rode a bit farther and saw at one end of the lake what was either another fancy two-story guesthouse or a private home surrounded by a wooden fence encompassing several acres.

Khökh Nuur

This was hardly what I was expecting. When I had first been to Khökh Nuur the first time in 1998 there had been no development of any kind around the lake and we even had a bit of trouble finding the place. We had come not by horse through the mountains from the Kherlen River but via a jeep trail from the süm center of Tsenkhermandal. When I returned again in 2002 someone had set up two gers and was living in one and renting the other one out to visitors. Now it appeared the area had been turned into a major tourist resort. Zevgee, who also had not been here for many years, was a bit nonplussed and not even sure he wanted to camp here. We rode along the side of lake across from the resort and found what looked like a heavily used campsite which was empty at the moment. So we decided to spend the night.

As we were setting up our tents a man in a uniform and wearing a badge arrived on a motorcycle. Now it appeared the lake had been declared a State Protected Area and you had to buy a permit to camp here. The permit was 3000 tögrögs. The ranger stayed for tea. He said the resort was a favorite of members of the Mongolian Parliament who often came here for the weekend. Many of them hoped, he said, to commune with the spirit of Chingis Khan while here and thus gain worldly power. The building in the fenced-in compound was the private residence of a gold miner who was reputed to be the richest man in Khentii Aimag. He came here on weekends and often hosted parties for high-rollers from Ulaan Baatar. When we asked the ranger how this guy could build a house in a State-Protected Area he just laughed and rubbed his thumb and fingers together.

All this was a bit hard to take in. On my first trip here we had camped right where the resort was now. We were the only people there and it seemed like a pretty wild place. Our jeep driver said a few people did come in the fall to pick the plentiful berries on the nearby hillsides, but that was about it. While we were eating breakfast three men who we assumed were local herdsmen, although we had not seen any gers in the area, arrived on horse. They sat down to chat and we offered them tea and soup, bread, and cheese. I noticed that the men wolfed the food down as if they had not eaten in days. Finally they left and a bit later we took the jeep trail back to Tsenkhermandal. After a couple of miles a jeep sped up from behind and flagged us over. Two men in police uniforms jumped out and asked if we had seen three men on horseback. We said we had. They said the three men were escapees from prison who had stolen three horses and were now hiding out in the woods around Khökh Nuur. No wonder they were so hungry. Whatever trouble they were in before they were in more now, since horse rustling in Mongolia carries an automatic five-year sentence.

On the side of the lake with the resort is a new monument to Chingis Khan created by the artist Ugtaabayar. By sheer coincidence I had arrived here on the day when Ugtaabayar was putting on the final touches to his work. We had spend the morning at celebrating the 840th Birthday of Chingis Khan at Khodoo Aral and then decided to move on and spend the night at Khôkh Nuur.

New Chingis Monument at Khökh Nuur

Close-up of relief on new monument

Earlier, at the time of my 1998 visit here, there had been a different monument on the same spot as the new one. This older monument had a relief portrait by artist Khurtsgerel which was probably the most reproduced image of Chingis, appearing in dozens, or not hundreds of different places. Once when walking down a street in Graz, Austria, the Dharma Wear Capital of the World, I was startled to see this image staring down at me from a billboard advertising a museum exhibition of Mongolian artwork. This monument has now been moved to a pass a mile or two from the lake.

Older monument with relief of Chingis

Detail of relief

It also appears of the copy of Juvaini’s monumental History of the World Conqueror.

Juvaini’s History of the World Conqueror

The relief appears yet again on John Man’s Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection.

The same artist Khurtsgerel also did the relief now found on the Summit of Burkhan Khaldun, the Mountain Worshipped By Chingis Khan, as portrayed on the cover of the most recent edition of my Travels in Northern Mongolia.

Khurtsgerel’s relief on the summit of Burkhan Khaldun

Zevgee and his wife Tumen-Ölzii at Khökh Nuur

The heart-poundingly luscious Enkha gracing Khökh Nuur with her ineffable presence

Khökh Nuur, the Blue Lake of the Black Heart Mountain